Help STOP: offshoring U.S. supply chains; forcing U.S. to do business with human rights violators; forcing U.S. to import unsafe, unhealthy food; banning GMO labeling

We must OPPOSE Fast Track – TPA and TPP in order to… OPPOSE offshoring of U.S. supply chains; OPPOSE forcing the U.S. to do business with human rights violators; OPPOSE forcing U.S. to import unsafe, unhealthy food; OPPOSE banning GMO labeling

Dear Friends,
I am a political activist, currently fighting Fast Track in Colorado and in Washington D.C. We are racking up “no” votes by visiting Congressional offices, and telling them what’s in the trade agreement. It’s that simple. Rarely do we meet a Congressional staffer who tells us that we are wrong. Mostly, we meet staffers who are looking for a way to save face in voting against the Trans Pacific Partnership, without being labelled “anti-trade” by the media.

The GREAT NEWS is that we are extremely close to having enough Republican “no” votes to defeat the Fast Track bill! Woo-hoo! Frankly, if the President had any idea how close we are, I think we’d already be feeling the repercussions. I have included the April 11th Fast Track update at the bottom of this email, below my signature. The LINK http://tipofthespear.net/FastTrack/CPA_Reasons-to-Oppose-TPA-and-TPP_Crista-Huff.pdf
features a one-page summary of Fast Track and the Trans Pacific Partnership, followed by a (two-page) description of the pertinent details.

The Fast Track trade promotion authority bill is slated to be introduced the week of April 20, 2015.

My colleagues and I at End Global Governancehttp://www.endglobalgovernance.com/
continue to visit Congresspeople and Senators on the Hill, to educate them about what’s in the trade agreement, and to ask them not to give the Obama administration Fast Track trade promotion authority, which rushes the trade agreement through Congress.

The mood about TPA/TPP has changed since I first began visiting D.C. in January.

At first, the staffers knew very little about the trade agreement, and got bogged down in discussing Fast Track vs. the regular order of voting.

Later, the staffers primarily cited “executive overreach”, which let me know that they were increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of giving the Obama administration Fast Track trade promotion authority.

Last week, every office spoke of the Obama administration’s horrendous negotiating skills. You could tell that they don’t want to vote for Fast Track, that they’re being pressured to vote for Fast Track, and that they’re seemingly looking for a talking point on which they can unite, and stand firm. It’s very uncomfortable for Republicans to oppose trade agreements, yet they understand now how wrong this trade agreement is.

Sometimes a concept seems so obvious to me, that I am embarrassed to mention it during the meetings, thinking that I might insult the Congressional staffer. Occasionally, I will voice it anyway. After a staffer and I discussed some of the outrageous aspects of the TPP yesterday, I then pointed out that if we give U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman Fast Track authority over the TPP, none of the harmful details in the TPP will be removed, because he’s the one who put them in there!

I watched the staffer look surprised, and take notes. Hello??? How did you not realize that Fast Track empowers the Obama administration, which has already run roughshod over the American people?! We have a President who has probably lied about his nationality, his religion, and his education; has screwed up negotiations with North Korea, South Korea, and Iran; who traded an army deserter for five terrorists; and who acts like a greedy child at the prospect of accomplishing wealth redistribution from American taxpayers to Americans on the dole, or worse, from America to every other country in the world!

Sigh. Maybe I’m not the right person to be traipsing around the Hill, educating staffers. Because clearly, I’m overestimating their knowledge and understanding of our President and his motivations. If Obama signed my child’s field trip permission slip, I’d immediately wonder if the school bus had been sabotaged. Capiche?

Anyway, we continue to convince Congresspeople to vote “no” on Fast Track. While we are very close to having enough votes to defeat Fast Track right now, another ten definite “no” votes would get me to relax a bit. Another 20 would have me grinning.

“And with as many as 60 House Republicans ready to vote against giving Obama fast-track or trade promotion authority, it’s possible a vote would fail on the floor.” I don’t know where the author got that number, but I can vouch for its general accuracy.

“Simply put, the multi-nationals are desperate for a way to make their stock prices go up. They’ve gotten too big to do it through sales to their existing customers. So they do it through share buybacks and spin-offs — both of which are artificial and temporary ways to boost a stock price. The only way to consistently boost a stock price over the longer term is to increase annual profits.”

TAKE ADDITIONAL ACTION!Copy and paste this message and forward it to your friends:

We defeated Cap & Trade … we can defeat Fast Track too!

We must OPPOSE Fast Track – TPA and TPP in order to…OPPOSE offshoring of U.S. supply chains; OPPOSE forcing the U.S. to do business with human rights violators; OPPOSE forcing U.S. to import unsafe, unhealthy food; OPPOSE banning GMO labeling

We met with a staffer who recently travelled with several Senators. He said that the Democratic Senators were “extremely bewildered by the lack of communication from the White House.” In addition, the President did not have his first meeting with freshmen Democrats until late March!

We met with a staffer who said “it’s galling what’s going on with this President” and referred to POTUS repeatedly “bungling” negotiations.

We met with a staffer who had close working experience with USTR Michael Froman. I won’t give you the direct quote, but the concepts of sneakiness and “being above the law” were mentioned; and I watched the staffer smack his head in horror that Michael Froman is the front man in TPP negotiations.

In virtually all of the meetings, the staffers discussed the secrecy of the TPP — “we’ve been left out in the cold” — and the complete lack of negotiation skills on the part of the Obama administration. A staffer told me, “When TPP comes out, it will be one of the hottest documents in town.”

One of my colleagues was speaking with a DoD employee. Their department had been told that TPP is a way to keep China at bay. They had been lied to. TPP is a docking agreement. China is fully expected to dock on when the ink is dry on the trade agreement. Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice have publicly welcomed China to dock onto the TPP.

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RECENT ARTICLESElected officials and conservative activists are beginning to speak out against Fast Track.

Under TPP, California’s new water restrictions would be grounds for ISDS lawsuits, by foreign countries or companies, against the State of California. Read about similar ISDS lawsuits under NAFTA, pertaining to environmental complaints.

“Vattenfall, a Swedish energy firm that operates nuclear plants in Germany, has levied an investor-state claim for a least $1 billion against Germany for its decision to phase out nuclear power following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. This comes after Vattenfall successfully used another investor-state case to push Germany to roll back environmental requirements for a coal-fired power plant owned by the corporation.”